


Look at everything that's come and gone

by disjointed_scribblings



Series: the whole mix tape [3]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disjointed_scribblings/pseuds/disjointed_scribblings
Summary: Chuck Bingley's younger sister told him once, with some disdain, that he had an “almost pathological need to be liked by everyone.”It stung, partly because it was a little bit true. He cared too much what people thought about him, cared too much in general.
Relationships: Charles Bingley & Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley
Series: the whole mix tape [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857073
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Look at everything that's come and gone

Charles Montgomery “Chuck” Bingley, MSc, PhD, etc., etc., clicked on the file attachment he’d just received from the department admin and covered his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch it load.

It was the last week of April, a weird transitional time at Pemberley University. The campus had emptied out as most undergrads were finished their exams, and faculty and grad students were busy grading and gearing up for the high conference season in May and June. After that, for Chuck anyway, July and August would be spent on fieldwork. Which was normally his favourite time of the year, but this year —

Chuck dragged his thoughts from his conflicted feelings about fieldwork to his conflicted feelings on the matter at hand. The other thing that happened at the end of April: course evaluations.

When he’d been an adjunct whose course evals could make or break his future employment prospects, he’d been so anxious about reading them he’d made his best friend do it instead. Now that he was on the tenure track, where a bad eval wasn’t a total disaster, he’d started to appreciate the positive comments from his students, and learned to take the negative ones with a grain of salt. For god’s sake, last year someone had complained that Chuck was _too happy_ during 8:30am lectures. And, unfortunately, every now and again some kid decided to say something gross and homophobic. It didn’t happen often, but when it did…

Well. Chuck didn’t like to dwell on it.

The course evals felt especially momentous this year because it was his last time teaching Intro to Animal Behaviour. For next year, he’d hand off his section to a post-doc teaching fellow. It was a bittersweet moment; it meant Chuck had enough seniority that they wanted him teaching more specialized courses, but he’d miss the energy and curiosity of a big lecture hall.

Outlook chimed the arrival of a new email. Glancing at the preview pop-up, Chuck grimaced. Another petty debate brewing on a committee that Chuck had agreed to chair, because it would look good in his tenure portfolio... and also because the dean had asked him when no one else had volunteered, and Chuck wasn’t good at saying no to the dean. Now he knew why no one had wanted the chairship. He really needed to get better at saying no.

Choosing the lesser of two evils, he gave in and clicked over to the results of his course evaluations.

The scores were… not quite as good as last year, he saw immediately. Still in the acceptable range, but maybe it was a good thing he was moving on from the Intro course.

As usual, most students hadn’t left comments, and those who had complained about petty things. Mostly they talked about how Chuck wasn’t as “fun” a prof as they’d heard. It was probably true. Chuck had certainly _felt_ less fun than usual over the past year. No surprise it came out in his teaching.

And one he could easily identify even though the evaluations were anonymous:

“I had a really bad breakup near the end of the semester and asked all my profs for extensions. Some of them didn’t think that a breakup was a good enough reason for an extension but Dr. Bingley let me stay after the official end of his office hours to vent and then gave me a chocolate bar and told me that men who only want to be with you on the ‘DL’ (seriously how old are you Dr. Bingley?) aren’t worth your time or your love no matter how great they seem otherwise. He also gave me the extension, which I really appreciated, but like is Dr. Bingley okay??”

“Mikayla, you wound me,” Chuck muttered. “I thought we had a real moment there.”

It was always disconcerting to learn how his students saw him, especially the ones he really got to know. Mikayla came to office hours regularly and asked smart questions and seemed interested in studying animal behaviour, and Chuck thought maybe she had a future in the field. Then again, he’d thought he was doing a good job of keeping his personal feelings out of his teaching, but apparently not.

Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the impending headache. He didn’t want to let his thoughts wander down that path—in fact he’d been trying to avoid thinking about his depressing love life as much as possible—so he clicked back over to his inbox to see what the latest disagreement on the committee was about. He was going to have to play referee again, and no matter what he said someone would be unhappy, and he hated when people were unhappy with him.

His younger sister had told him once, with some disdain, that he had an “almost pathological need to be liked by everyone.”

It had stung, partly because it was a little bit true. He cared too much what people thought about him, cared too much in general, and was very bad at handling criticism. 

Fortunately Darcy had been there to say “Maybe you’d be a pleasanter person if you had a bit of that instinct yourself, Carlie,” because Darcy was Chuck’s best friend in the world and always stood up for him even when he didn’t stand up for himself.

Chuck loved his sisters, but sometimes he didn’t like them all that much. It was a regular source of guilt, and one of the things he’d bonded about with—

Damn it. That was the last thing he wanted to think about.

Resolutely putting the man out of his mind, Chuck focused his attention on the email chain with the committee…

And thanked his lucky starts when his best friend knocked on his office door before he had to compose a reply.

“Darcy! Just the person I wanted to see.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

“You’re here to convince me to take a break and grab a coffee with you, aren’t you? Then of course you’re the person I wanted to see!”

Chuck didn’t wait for her response before closing his laptop and springing to his feet. It was mid-afternoon, campus was empty, Chuck didn’t feel like working, and Darcy had stopped by his office, ergo, impromptu coffee date.

“Oh, I see. You’re making me an enabler in your procrastination.” But she already had her travel mug with her, so Chuck had guessed right. She smiled when he gave the mug a pointed look.

Darcy’s favourite coffee shop was halfway across campus, but it served ridiculously good fair trade coffee and hot chocolate and the walk gave him even more of an excuse to procrastinate, so Chuck didn’t mind. It was raining lightly, not hard enough to justify turning back for an umbrella, but enough that Chuck wished he’d brought a jacket with a hood like Darcy had.

Darcy didn’t say much as they walked, either because of the rain or because something was on her mind. He knew that something was wrong when they got to the coffee shop and she didn’t comment on the fact that he asked for chocolate sprinkles and extra whipped cream on his drink.

She knew him well enough to know he only let himself have that indulgence when he was upset.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when they’d taken their coffees and found a table near a window.

Darcy was silent a long moment. Knowing that pushing wouldn’t get her to say anything before she was ready, Chuck took the opportunity to glance around. A month earlier, this cafe had been a sea of studious undergrads prepping for their final exams; now there was only one other occupied table.

“Are you going back to Meryton this summer?”

Okay, maybe she had noticed the chocolate sprinkles.

“I mean I know you have to go back to the general area,” she continued, “with all those squirrels you were chasing down last summer. But —“

“But there are other towns around there. I don’t know that I’ll stay in Meryton proper.”

Darcy nodded like she’d come to a decision. “You should see this.”

After a few swipes, she set her phone on the table between them.

“What—“ Chuck started to say, and then he realized what, or rather who, she wanted him to see, and had to blink.

It was a picture of John Bennet with two of his sisters. John looked tired, sad, strained—worse than Chuck felt. Chuck stared down at the pixelated image and couldn’t keep from imagining himself pushing back the hair from John’s forehead, smoothing away the tension in the line of his jaw.

Really, after everything, how could this longing still be there, still be so strong?

“What happened?” Chuck asked, not bothering to hide the depth of his emotion.

Darcy just nodded at the phone again and Chuck realized the picture was part of a news story, and the caption read “Lydia Bennet and family leave Hertford County Courthouse.”

“Holy crap,” Chuck muttered, picking up Darcy’s phone and swiping up to the headline: **Charges Dropped Against Meryton Hairdresser in Tea Poisoning Case**

> All charges have been dropped agains Lydia Bennet, the hairdresser who allegedly sold her clients contaminated herbal teas, after the manufacturer admitted to improper sourcing practices last week.
> 
> This is the latest in a story that has caused a social media firestorm across Hertford County.
> 
> The story began in early March, when a Meryton woman suffering from nausea, numbness and confusion was admitted to hospital. Doctors eventually traced her symptoms to a batch of herbal tea from Wickham Young Wellness, which the woman had purchased from her hairdresser, Lydia Bennet. Testing revealed that the tea, which claimed to include powdered medicinal almond mushrooms, actually contained poisonous fly alargic mushrooms. Bennet was arrested and later charged with administering a noxious substance.
> 
> Since then, multiple Meryton women have made posts to Facebook alleging that Bennet regularly mentioned Wickham Young Wellness products to clients during their hair appointments, and in several instances became aggressive in her sales pitch.
> 
> Last week, a major turning point came in the case when police reported that the company’s co-owner, Jordana Wickham, confessed to having mistakenly used the poisonous mushrooms when preparing her products. Wickham is being charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
> 
> With no evidence that Bennet was aware of the accidental addition of poison to the tea she was selling, the Crown has now dropped the charges against her.
> 
> Neither Lydia Bennet nor the Longbourn Dairy Farm, owned the Bennet family, could be reached for comment.

“Jordana Wickham?” Chuck looked up at Darcy, whose fingers where clenched so hard around her travel mug that they’d started to look white. “Isn’t she the one who pretended to have cancer to scam Georgie and take her inheritance money?”

Darcy nodded tightly.

“She’s the one who bullied you as a child. The one whose father was your mom’s PhD student?”

Darcy nodded again.

There was something more there. Chuck narrowed his eyes. “What did you do to get her to step in and take the blame after she left Lydia as the scapegoat?”

“The police were already looking at her, so she wouldn’t have gotten away with it regardless. But anyway, what I did doesn’t matter.”

Well, that was alarming. “Darce—“

Darcy breathed out sharply. “Fine. I’m paying all her legal fees and I also transferred the value she claims my mother meant to invest in her business.”

“Darcy!”

“I couldn’t let her keep doing this, keep ruining the lives of younger women who trust her and look up to her! And Lydia Bennet might not be my favourite person in the world, but I couldn’t let her pay this price for being naive and a bit greedy. I paid her legal fees too, or at least gave the money to her aunt. I… I think I’ve been unfair to the entire Bennet family.”

“Have you?” This was a new development. Chuck looked out the window into the grey day beyond, avoiding Darcy’s suddenly piercing eyes.

“Chuck, I need to tell you something.” 

He glanced down into his coffee. He’d only managed to take a few sips and the whipped cream had melted into an awkward puddle.

“Does this have something to do with Leo Bennet coming to visit?”

It was the only thing Chuck could think. That after all Darcy’s complaining about Meryton and the Bennets, after the fierceness of her denials, that when Leo had come to Lambton with his aunt last month, they must have—

Was that what she had to tell him? Was she moving to Meryton to live happily ever after with Leo Bennet?

The idea that Darcy could have that when she hadn’t event wanted it, whereas Chuck—

“No—well, kind of. We… had words.” Darcy sounded so awkward that it was immediately obvious that this was not, in fact, the start of a happily-ever-after story.

“What kind of words?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her tone was severe, which told him both that whatever fight she’d had with Leo still bothered her, and that she wouldn’t talk about it no matter what.

Chuck tried a different track. “When he came out with us he couldn’t take his eyes off you all night.”

“Well, _that’s_ certainly not true. But regardless, something he said—“

Darcy paused to choose her words, and Chuck watched her fingers twist on her coffee mug.

“Leo said something that made me realize that I may have underestimated John.”

Chuck waited a few beats for her next sentence. When none came, he looked back up at her face. She looked nervous, pale.

“Okay?” he said, and watched her blink at him. “I mean, is that it? All that build up, for that?”

“I’m sorry, I should have explained better. I didn’t—last August, I think I gave you bad advice. When I said I didn’t think he was looking for a long-term future with you, or that—“

“I remember what you said,” Chuck interrupted her, because he really didn’t want to have to relive that conversation.

“Of course. But I think I was… misinterpreting some things in that situation. And worse than that, my opinion was biased because I didn’t like Meryton and I didn’t like his parents or his sisters, and when you started to talk like you were staying there permanently I was—scared of losing you to them, I guess. If I have to be completely honest, I was more scared of that than I was of how badly you’d be hurt if things didn’t work out. Which is both ridiculous and selfish.”

Chuck looked back into his now-cooling coffee as he processed her words. He didn’t know what to think about the idea that maybe things could have gone differently with John. But about Darcy—

“And then,” the best friend in the universe and occasional dumb-ass continued, “you haven’t quite been yourself this year. And I can’t help but feel responsib—“

“Darcy Anne Fitzwilliam,” he interrupted her. “I love you very dearly, but sometimes you are an absolute idiot. I hope you don’t go around thinking that I follow every piece of advice you give me like it’s the gospel truth or something.”

Darcy’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth.

“You can’t keep walking around like you’re carrying the entire weight of the world on your shoulders. Georgie’s a grown-up now, or close enough, and believe it or not, I’ve matured too. We’re both responsible for our own actions. So is Lydia Bennet, for that matter.”

Darcy stared at him like this was all brand-new information to her. Giving in, he reached over to hold her hand.

“You’re my best friend in the world,” he continued, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’d never just _abandon_ you. We’ve been friends for long enough that I hope you know you can talk to me about anything.”

“You’re the only person I talk about things with,” she said, and it was just a bit pathetic.

“Okay, well, we’re going to go back to the main point of this conversation in a minute, but first: Darcy, you know how you always say I give men too much benefit of the doubt so you have to doubt them for me? Well, I am here to tell _you_ that you keep men too much at arm’s length and you won’t get that real connection unless you let yourself be vulnerable.”

“I can be vulnerable.” The words came out annoyed, but she was wincing. Chuck wondered again what exactly Leo Bennet had said to her.

Which brought him back to the part of the conversation he wasn’t sure he wanted to have.

“It is… hard,” he admitted. “Harder for me than it used to be, before I made bad decisions and got hurt. I mean, you know me, I can talk about myself all day long, but when it comes to the important things… God knows I’m not going to lecture you about not having the hard conversations, because that would be super hypocritical. I know I tend to avoid anything that could be unpleasant.”

Darcy pursed her lips but didn’t comment.

“That’s one of the reasons I rely on your opinion. You help bring in that reality check. I… last summer…” He’d spent so much time trying not to think about last summer that it was strange to talk about it now. Strange how easily all those feelings came right back. “I was getting carried away, getting ahead of myself, and you were absolutely right to call me on that. And the things you said, they were things I needed to think about. And… John…”

It was the first time Chuck had allowed himself to say the name aloud since August, and his voice cracked on it. How ridiculous. He lifted a hand to hide the probably embarrassing expression on his face, because they were in public after all.

Chuck had been the person who cared the most in every single relationship he’d been in. Maybe he just cared too much, loved too quickly. It hadn’t bothered him in the past, or at least not until the inevitable breakups happened. But with John—it had felt different, special. It had felt like maybe it really was love. Ridiculous, after only two months. But then, Chuck had always been a bit of a romantic.

Darcy’s chair screeched against the linoleum as she pulled it closer and threw an arm around him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s not you,” Chuck said to his now-probably-cold coffee. “In August… you brought up issues that I definitely needed to talk to him about, seriously, before I did something stupid. But I chickened out. Instead of actually sitting him down and telling him we needed to talk, like a rational person, I just dropped little comments, hoping that he would pick up on one of them and we could just kind of naturally flow into that conversation—and he never picked up any of them. And the more he passed up chances to talk about the future, the more it became clear that you were right about everything.”

“Chuck—“

He shook his head. “No, it’s pathetic. I realized I was more into him than he was into me, and I figured it would only embarrass us both if I did try to ask him if he saw a future for us, so I just left without saying anything.”

When Darcy had suggested that maybe it was just a summer hook-up on John’s side, had pointed out how he didn’t seem to want the rest of Meryton or even his parents to know, had worried that Chuck would end up in another dead-end relationship with a man who’d never be fully out of the closet, Chuck had brushed it off, but then started to worry. He didn’t want to go back to being someone’s dirty little secret. And then John had ignored, or maybe not noticed, every attempt at fishing for future plans. It became clear that it would be both embarrassing and painful for Chuck to confirm that his feelings were one-sided, so he hadn’t tried. He’d just avoided it like every other unpleasant thing he could get away from.

But the damage had been done anyway. Since August, he’d only been on a handful of dates, and none of them had been worth a second one. None of them had had the same kind of magic he’d felt with John.

Also, it turned out that is was hard to forget an ex when he was a dairy farmer and your break-up coping mechanisms involved ice cream and whipped cream-topped lattes.

“Wait, you didn’t say _anything_?”

He blinked at her tone. “Well, I mean, obviously I said goodbye and it’s been fun. I didn’t straight-up ghost him.”

“You said goodbye and it’s been _fun_?”

“I mean, not exactly those words! I deleted the text, but—“

“You _texted_ goodbye and it’s been fun?”

They’d been friends for fifteen years and Chuck had never before seen Darcy’s eyebrows lift so high.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, Jesus,” she muttered. “Maybe I’m bad at being vulnerable but at least I can say what I mean.” 

“Maybe you’d better say what you mean now, then.”

“I mean, you went all the way from acting entirely enamoured to texting ‘see you never’ in, what, two weeks?”

He hadn’t considered that angle before. “Okay, from that perspective it does sound bad. But aren’t I the heartbroken one here?”

“Charles Montgomery Bingley, I love you very dearly but sometimes you are an absolute idiot.” Darcy shook her head at him. “The reason I wanted to tell you I was wrong and gave you bad advice in the first place is that after Leo yelled at me—“

“He what?”

“It doesn’t matter. After that I reassessed some things and I did some digging and—Chuck, the reason I wanted to talk to you about it is that it sounds like John’s just as heartbroken as you are.”

Chuck stared, trying to make her words make sense.

“Obviously he’s got some other things going on right now,” Darcy continued softly, “and I haven’t exactly spoken to him. So I’m not saying—well, I don’t know what I’m not saying. What I _am_ saying, I guess, is that if you’re going to be in Meryton this summer, maybe it’s worth talking to him. An actual conversation about your feelings. Finally.”

Chuck stared for so long that eventually Darcy stood, picking up both of their stone-cold coffees to dump the dregs.

It didn’t make any sense. For John to be heartbroken now, that would have to mean that he’d cared, deeply, about Chuck last summer. And if he’d cared, if he’d wanted them to last past the end of the summer, why hadn’t he said anything when Chuck started dropping broad hints about the future?

They should have had a real talk last summer. Even expecting it to go badly, Chuck should have forced the issue. Maybe… if what Darcy was saying was right…

Suddenly, that goodbye text felt less like a self-protection manoeuvre and more like a cop-out.

Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to tamp down his roiling emotions.

“It’s past four,” Darcy said when she got back to the table. “You want to go grab something stronger? Or do you need to go back and finish whatever you were procrastinating on when I interrupted you?”

He’d completely forgotten the latest committee battle.

“God. No, I’ll let those gargoyles fight it out between themselves for one more day. I need a drink as soon as possible.”

The rain had stopped by the time they went outside. Chuck pulled Darcy’s arm through his and patted it.

“You’re a good friend, Darce.”

She smiled up at him. “So are you. The best.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Summer of 69. 
> 
> Oh, when I look back now  
> That summer seemed to last forever  
> And if I had the choice  
> Yeah, I'd always wanna be there  
> Those were the best days of my life


End file.
